Tokyo Police Formally Investigate Missing Bitcoin

A Bitcoin trader walks out from a building after attending the first creditors’ meeting of failed Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox in Tokyo on July 23.

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department said Wednesday that it has launched a formal investigation into the disappearance of bitcoins from defunct exchange Mt. Gox.

When it collapsed in February, the Tokyo-based exchange said it lost 850,000 bitcoins, worth half a billion dollars, due to hacking attacks. The company’s chief executive Mark Karpelès said in March that it submitted documents to police and requested that the matter be investigated.

“We decided to launch an investigation as we concluded this case could be connected to criminal activity,” a spokesman for the police department said.

The police say they suspect 27,000 bitcoins were withdrawn through illegal computer access.

Earlier this week, the court-appointed trustee for the Mt. Gox bankruptcy case said he has extended his deadline to submit an outcome report of his investigation to May from November. The trustee has been saying it would take “a considerable amount of time” to finish the investigation due to the unique nature of the case.